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The Hindu :

Traversing through the laidback old town and its glitzy new-age counterpart makes for a wonderful study of contrasts in Dubai

Photo: By AuthorThe Dubai mall

There’s the glittering new-age Dubai, where everything is bathed in a golden glow, and there is the old Dubai, where life seems to move at a more languorous pace, where people still stop to stand and stare.

If the former is a haven for the brand-conscious — almost every possible luxury brand in the world has marked its presence in this Emirate with an outlet or two in the many malls — the latter takes you back in time to when a fledgling Dubai was on its way to becoming the ultimate name in luxury. The charming souks redolent of fresh spices, dried aromatic flowers and persuasive shopkeepers, and the cobblestone paths that take you from one market to the other…there’s so much history in the air.

I start my tryst with Old Dubai with the utterly fascinating Dubai Museum (http://www.dubaitourism.ae), housed in the historic Al Fahidi Fort. Vintage cannons and reconstructed desert dwellings dot the sandy stretches of the fort, while the rooms serve as a repository of well-preserved traditional weapons and musical instruments.

The Indian connection

The desert dwellings in the museum are delightful proof of the linkages between India and this Emirate. Some of the dwellings displayed are Al Kaimah and Al Arish (the summer home). There’s also an Al Manama, a bed for sleeping during the searing summers. Curiously enough, the bedcovers in the display rooms are proof of the age-old trading relationship the Emirate and India share — the sheets, a trifle faded, are of a brand called Larstar from Solapur.

Once you enter the portals of the museum, renovated in 1971, history takes over.

The spice market

It starts off with a map of Arabia, circa 1570, by Dutch geographer and cartographer, Abraham Ortelius.

Moving images on a…More

The Hindu :

We may never use them. But why can’t we ever stop obsessively hoarding recipes and recipe books?

Photo: K. AnanthanCOLLECTING RECIPESIt’s never enough!

Ok, not all of us call the chef and kiss him on both the cheeks in appreciation of his chow mien, but we certainly do the next best thing — wide-eyed, we ask: how did you make it? It’s irresistible, this urge to know how the dish — any dish — is made. We listen to recipes, read them, watch the dish made. We puff up when others coax us into sharing secrets behind the mawa gujia and the mint pakoda. We start a cookery blog, and look up for more.

And, copy-paste one more recipe when we have a hundred untried ones; hoard cookbooks even if we only cook from memory. Let’s face it — ccollecting recipes is our culinary obsession.

Spectacular pictures

Says Madhavi C., HR executive with an MNC: “I buy cookbooks in the hope of becoming a good cook some day. I flip through the pages, but don’t have the discipline to translate it into cooking. I try one item, and it bombs — that puts me off, and I don’t try anything for a long time. She finds the dishes spectacular in the pictures, and feels there’s comfort in stuffing a drawer with them. “Folks such as me, who don’t get out of the comfort zone and don’t have a large repertoire, surround themselves with books.”

You will agree recipe exchange is comfort conversation; a way for family bonding. “My mother loved to collect recipes from newspapers, food packets, TV / radio programmes, restaurants… anywhere she could find them,” says Rajani. “She got me to collect recipes while I was in elementary school.”

And, now she creates a recipe book every year. “I do this to honour my mom’s love for collecting recipes,” she says. “Would love to see…More

The Hindu : y>A comprehensive travel guide for Jaipur

Be it foreign or domestic tourists, Jaipur has always been on their priority list of places to visit.

So understandably, the colourful capital city of Rajasthan, replete with majestic forts, palaces, temples and bustling bazaars, has been much explored by tourists. But here comes a travel guide, “Love Jaipur, Rajasthan”, which claims to give a new take on the city. Written by Fiona Caulfield, the 168-page travel guide has eight sections covering the best places to eat, drink, shop and explore in the city.

Caulfield says: “Unlike mass tourist books, using this guide is like being chaperoned by a good friend.” Jaipur, she feels, “is a destination that offers travellers rich rewards if it is explored more fully”.

The book, released at the recent Jaipur Literature Festival, also includes mini-destination guides to Jodhpur, Udaipur, Jaisalmer and Agra as well as some destination hotels and itinerary advice to those touring Rajasthan.

More guidebooks

Caulfield is the creator of the Love Travel brand of guidebooks. The book on Jaipur is the fourth title in its India series.

Besides, the one on the Pink City, it has brought out guidebooks on Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai. Its future projects include travel guides on Kolkata, Kerala, Chennai and Goa.

“Love Jaipur, Rajasthan” is available in both lifestyle stores and bookshops at a price of Rs. 1,200.

Ten per cent of sales profits of these guidebooks go to the Love Travel Foundation to support social and environment-conscious organisations.

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The Hindu : y>Hallimane’s annual Ugadi feast is here, this time with a wider reach across the city

Hallimane, the rural restaurant, will celebrate Ugadi with a special menu on March 15 and 16.

The delicacies to be served include kharjura holigey, chettambade, sorekai halwa, haalbaai and more. Guests will be welcomed with traditional bevu-bella and will leave with tamboola, thus making the celebration similar to that at home, says the restaurant’s proprietor Neelavara Sanjeeva Rao.

This year, they have tied up with six branches of Big Bazaar where you can book your meal in advance and have it delivered there.

The branches include Malleswaram, Jayanagar, Old Madras Road, Koramangala, Banashankari and Hebbal. One can also book in advance at the Ganesh Darshan (Dosa Camp) at Jayanagar 3 {+r} {+d} block.

Hallimane is at #14, 3 {+r} {+d} cross, Sampige Road, Malleswaram. For details call 96112-11222 or 41279754.

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The Hindu : y>It’s a fantastic stress-buster and also allows you to do your bit to green your planet. So why not take to gardening, asks BINDU TOBBY

Photo: P.V. SivakumarGREEN-CARPET WELCOME Embrace gardening and enjoy multiple benefits

My mom spends a good partof her spare time doinggenetic mutation, crossbreeding, gene splicingand cross pollination. No, she’snot a nuclear scientist and neitherdoes she toil in an intricatecorner of a complex laboratory.She does this in her spare timeas a hobby, in her backyard: withher wide variety of flora and fauna,tending them lovingly,watching at close quarters theirgrowth. She keeps a tab on combinationsof colours, monitorstemperatures, scrutinises theshapes they grow into, watering,weeding, pruning and trimming.Indoor or outdoor, bonsaior oak, shrubby or tendril -plants add aesthetics, cheerfulnessand oxygen to our lives.And whether potted or on ropesas creepers, inside little vaseswith bright coloured flowers, inbetween rocks or some gravelon the driveway, they quietlytransform drab walls or dull carparks.

Bring nature indoors

Says Piya Bose, “I love to haveplants all around me but apartmentliving isn’t very conduciveto that though we have a fewexotic plants in our tiny balcony”.Reminiscing about herchildhood days, she says shemisses the patch of lush greengrass and roses along theboundary wall of her home. “Itused to be a treat to wake upevery winter morning and enjoythe first cup of tea out in theopen with chrysanthemumsand dahlias and the butterfliesflitting over them”. She adds,”My mom has the green thumbof the family and loves herplants and nurtures them likechildren, keeping a log of theirfirst flowering and other suchmilestones. She says being withher plants is a fantastic stressbuster. “We were never allowedto pluck flowers and only allowedto pick those that fell tothe ground. And I never got totake a bunch of freshly cut flowersfrom our garden to schoollike those kids who always gotthe teacher’s affection!” Havingcome full circle now she says,”Right now, I am campaigningwithin our apartment block tosave the garden that some residentswant…More

The Hindu : LATHA ANANTHARAMAN

There is nothing like a good dystopian fable to show you what would really happen if…

The horrors of Bt brinjal are put off for the time being. We have taken a small, unexpected step back from the brink. Opinions may be divided now, but one day we will surely be grateful for whatever it was that made our Minister for Environment and Forests stand up to Monsanto.

I have read about Bt rice, Bt cotton and other transgenic crops for nearly two decades in volumes of conference papers, most of which painted a jolly picture of the wonders of genetic modification, if you skipped the bits about the potential for toxic reactions and tumour formation, and the need for long-term trials.

But what made me sit up and take note was Margaret Atwood’s 2003 novel “Oryx and Crake”, which I got as a birthday gift just as I was translating a treatise on genetically modified organisms.

The novel opens on a post-apocalyptic scene. Most humans have died of deliberately initiated plagues and their mechanised cities and gated compounds have broken down.

One survivor, the last as far as he knows, navigates a world in which wolvogs, pigoons, and other transgenic creatures have gone feral.

Drug-resistant viruses and bacteria make the water and soil toxic to him.

His only humanoid companions are the Crakers, created by scientists in a pleasing range of colours and genetically designed to feed on leaves and grass, resist diseases and UV rays, and die without regrets at the age of 30.

We may read doomsday scenarios in newspapers, although denial is the more likely story there, but there is nothing like a good dystopian fable to show you what would really happen if. If we surrender our civil rights, we get George Orwell’s “1984”. If we let the market decide who gets an organ transplant, we get Manjula Padmanabhan’s “Harvest”. If we don’t…More

The Hindu : y>INDeco Hotels bags National Tourism Award

INDeco Hotels, Swamimalai, has bagged the prestigious National Tourism Award in the Heritage Classic Category. The award was recently handed over to Steve Borgia, CMD of the hotel, by Vice-President Hamid Ansari.

INDeco currently operates heritage and thematic hotels in Swamimalai, Mamallapuram and Yercaud, and is in the process of establishing similar hotels in Chettinad, Madurai and Tanjore.

All INDeco hotels house a museum, “The Steve Borgia Indian Heritage Museum”, to collect, preserve and protect local art, culture and heritage. For details, visit www.indecohotels.com.

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The Hindu : y>

Night to remember Kristallnacht

Fox History and Entertainment presents “Battling Terror”, a special series comprising four shows that cover some of most shocking incidents of our times: the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and many other such incidents that impacted the world at large.

It will aired from from Monday to Thursday at 9 p.m. Each episode covers a gamut of events, personalities, regions and time spans that were crucial to the spread of terrorism. Tonight at 9 p.m., watch “Kristallnacht and the birth of Israel”. Two dramatic days defined the fortunes of the Jewish people in the 20th century.

Kristallnacht in Germany marked the beginning of the slide into the abyss of the Holocaust. Kristallnacht was a turning point in Hitler’s persecution of the Jews. Gangs of Nazi youths roamed through Jewish neighbourhood, openly attacking Jews and their property burning and looting synagogues. Less than 10 years later and amid bloodshed, the 2000-year-old dream of a Jewish homeland became a reality and the State of Israel was born.

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The Hindu :

Basava Ambara, in a century old heritage building, takes you on a trip through the country’s rich traditions of handlooms and handicrafts

INDIGENOUS Soaking in a world of Indian art and craft PHOTO: SAMPATH KUMAR G. P.

Basava Ambara, to begin with, shows you why you shouldn’t shop at a mall. I think we are a generation lost to ambience and a sense of space, the slow-world way. The store, set in a century-old building, also pampers the shopaholic in you, offers comfort food and a green scene to the eye. Most of all, it lets you be, and lounge around in quietude, soaking in a world of Indian art and craft.

Set in the heart of Basavanagudi, Basava Ambara has taken root in a sprawling and winding annexe of a bungalow built in 1890. The welcoming garden walkway, though a unit of India-American Hybrid Seeds, makes for a pleasant place to potter around. Walk past the Rogue Elephant Café and into the main building (but come back later after the exhausting shopping for a bite or a lunch). Proprietor Jaya Mani, a much-respected name in the field of fabric and craft in the city, agrees that the place has a lot of character. The place has been designed and laid out well, in a way that it’s all very inviting.

The central hall, with its high ceiling opens up your senses and houses saris, fabric, bags, pouches, a display of furniture, and jewellery in old wood-and-glass cases on legs. The high point of the store’s collection is definitely the saris. It would be passé to say they are unusual and gorgeous. There are intricately worked tie-die silks in the shibori tradition — the saris are hand-embroidered, dyed, the thread removed to reveal intricate faint white patterns on subtly coloured saris. There are bright–coloured Maheshwaris with zari work. Mul cottons with block prints, block…More

The Hindu :

M.K. Paul speaks from two perspectives — within the armed forces and outside

OPTIMIST Major Gen. M.K. Paul PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K.

From the trials and tribulations of the Partition and its immediate aftermath, the wars with China and Pakistan, the Green Revolution that made the country self sufficient in food grains, to the emergence of India as a growing economic powerhouse and an IT hub, Major Gen. (Retd.) M.K. Paul has witnessed all these momentous events that have shaped this country over the past six decades. His book “Little Man from the East”, which he describes as a semi-autobiographical account, talks about his experiences in his nearly four-decade stint in the Indian Army and life before that. It also describes the events that have shaped this country.

“One of my first clear memories was of the grief that Partition and the subsequent shift brought about in my family. I was too young to understand it, but my parents and grandparents were devastated. It was only when they crossed over to the Indian side that they realised that there would be no going back. It is a terrible feeling,” says Paul.

After graduating from Jadavpur University, he came to Bangalore and was selected to the Indian Army. “It was a time when talk of nation building was in the air and all of us wanted to do something for the country. That was a major source of inspiration for joining the Army.”

He soon discovered that Army life was very different from civilian life and called for a very different mindset. “The Army is called to fight in alien conflict zones; you have to live without family in remote locations, and the job involves frequent transfers. I have made an attempt to include all these elements in the book.” The book is divided into two sections, with part one dealing with his experiences in the…More